Local-global identities

I have long been fascinated by the use of multiple languages in the linguistic repertoires of multilingual people. My dissertation examined English-Swahili codeswitching in the workplace, with the expectation that English might be used as a resource for identifying with 'out group' reference points. While this did happen, I also found that the workers adapted and blended English into their interactions for varied purposes, including mitigating face-threatening actions, creating humor, and establishing a sense of equality among colleagues - and hence, used English as a local language. Since my dissertation days, I have continued to research how multilinguals in Tanzania and Hawai`i use their linguistic repertoires to express social identities and to manage social relations in a range of contexts, with attention to how local and global references and affiliations are brought in to play and also transgressed. This research now includes studies of face-to-face interaction at work, social media discourse, cinematic discourse, hip hop, beauty pageants, and advertising.